Why carry more ammos?

[dannazgu]

I'm new on the game and I'm bit confused, I saw some people saying they usually carry more ammos than one pack for weapons
For example, I saw a guy saying he carried 2 tons for Ac/5, does that mean he'll be shooting twice the slugs during combat?

Ammos and weapons are something still figuring out, like a gun onl needs one pack, so why carry two?

[Balsover]

Ammo has rounds, depends on how many you plan to shoot. A single ton of AC20 ammo doesn't get you much, I think less then 10 shots.

LRM/SRM ammo is non denominational. One ton is 120 missiles, which is quite different if you are using an LRM5 vs an LRM20.

[Power and Wealth]

This game has a very annoying habit of "suddenly" and "unexpectedly" dropping a full enemy reinforcement lance upon the player, in what I can only describe as piss poor game design hence why it is sometimes better to carry more ammo.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by dannazgu:

I'm new on the game and I'm bit confused, I saw some people saying they usually carry more ammos than one pack for weapons
For example, I saw a guy saying he carried 2 tons for Ac/5, does that mean he'll be shooting twice the slugs during combat?

Ammos and weapons are something still figuring out, like a gun onl needs one pack, so why carry two?

Carrying more ammo means carrying more shots for the gun. if you want to shoot 2 AC5s per turn, you put 2 AC5s in the mech, but then you use twice as much ammo.

1 ton of ammo lets you shoot the Ac5 like 15 times, where 2 tons of ammo would let you shoot 1 AC5 30 times and so on. THink of it like bringing more magazines for your M4 in a CoD game.

[gphotopoulos]

Each ammo box carries ammo for several rounds of shooting. Generally bigger weapons have heavier ammo, so the 1ton box carries fewer rounds. For example the AC/2 ammo box contains 25 rounds, and the AC/20 ammo box only 5, so if you equip one of your mechs with an AC/20, 2 ammo boxes are really the minimum (it makes no sense to spend 15 tons on a weapon only to get 5 shots out of it). Keep in mind that UACs consume two ammo per round of shooting and use the same boxes as regular autocannons. In the late game you'll be facing two or even three enemy lances, so you need enough ammo for your weapons that use it to deal with 10-12 enemy mechs during a mission. As a general guideline, I think having enough ammo for 15 rounds of shooting is nice and safe, but you can go down to as few as 10 if you know what you're doing, for example I very rarely include ammo for more than 10 rounds of SRM shooting (i.e. any mech that carries 10 SRM tubes or less carries one ton only), because SRMs have limited range and you sometimes don't fire them during your approach towards the enemy. But someone else might tell you that they're among the most efficient weapons, so you should make sure they fire anytime they can. And your lance composition also matters. The Marauder for example is an amazing mech, it usually carries one ballistic weapon (something like a UAC5, an AC10 or a Gauss) and two main energy weapons, so it's not that ammo dependent (and there are all-energy loadouts like 4 LPL or PPC/laser combos that need no ammo at all) and at the same time it can take out enemy mechs in a single round of shooting with its called shot bonus (either by targeting their head or their CT), so if you have a Marauder in your lance, you may skimp on some of the ammo for the other mechs to add the extra weapon, heat sink or jump jet(s) you want.

[wesnef]

You can mouse over an ammo box, to see how much ammo it carries.

And things like Machine Guns (3x5 shots) use 5 ammo per firing. So even though a ton of MG ammo has lots and lots of rounds, a Firestarter with 6 MG's can use it up quick if it stays in melee range.

(Ditto with Missile racks. An LRM20 fires 20 missiles at once. So a ton of LRM ammo with 120 rounds, will only let you fire that LRM20 six times. And if you build a missile mech with 3xLRM20's, you're going to need a whole bunch of ammo boxes for it.)

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by wesnef:

You can mouse over an ammo box, to see how much ammo it carries.

And things like Machine Guns (3x5 shots) use 5 ammo per firing. So even though a ton of MG ammo has lots and lots of rounds, a Firestarter with 6 MG's can use it up quick if it stays in melee range.

(Ditto with Missile racks. An LRM20 fires 20 missiles at once. So a ton of LRM ammo with 120 rounds, will only let you fire that LRM20 six times. And if you build a missile mech with 3xLRM20's, you're going to need a whole bunch of ammo boxes for it.)

I tend to go 1 ton of ammo per launcher and 2 tons for cannons

[danko9696]

Like the above comments said you can look at how many shots per attack each weapon fires and how many shots you get for one ton of ammo. Once you have that figured out now it is a matter of how many salvos you expect to fire per mission and then allocate enough ammo for that, and for that it is mostly about experience as a player and your specific playstyle.

For example early-mid game if I'm using AC20/UAC20 I'll be packing enough ammo for ten salvos per mission, perhaps more but probably not. But in the late game most likely I'd expect to fire four or five shots maximum, because I'll have so much damage and my attacks will be so accurate thanks to leveled pilots that I won't need to fire nearly as often compared to the beginning of the game.

Also some mission types are potentially much longer (Attack and Defend for example) and you fight a lot more enemies so you'll have to adjust for that.

[Sword_of_Light]

The corollary to this is that if you've designed a mech with weapons that are all dependent on ammo, it is possible to find yourself without a weapon. I typically try to make sure I design mechs with at least one energy based weapon so that if I run out of ammo (or it explodes) I won't be reduced to melee-only.

Now, that is the down side to using lots of ammo - it can explode. A critical hit - including damage caused by overheating - has a chance of detonating your ammo. So carefully weigh the risk of exploding with the benefit of murdering your enemies.

You should also be particularly careful since some of the Story missions have critical characters piloting mechs with huge ammo stores, so a quick way to loose the mission - and the game if you're in ironman mode - is running them face first into the badguys.

[red1]

my simple rule of thumb for ammo, I want enough to last at least 12 rounds, seldom does it take that many, but a good safe number so you don't run out.